My Own Blood Spilt
by Lavender Mansworth
Summary: I'm jealous of the nights when I know you enter your darkened chamber to cry yourself to sleep against velvet pillows. SiriusBella.


When I was very young, you sheltered me, protected me from monsters in the closet, from the imaginary demons you created yourself. And I loved it. You were my glowing savior and I knew you'd never let me go as you held me in your strong arms. How could you? Because I was your helpless one, your constant victim, who you could always look to for adoration of the highest form. Out family bypassed growing emotion as cousins' affection and smiled on us with their all privileging gaze. The general shared consensus of the family dictated our own lives and we learned to interpret and share it for the purposes of remaining in their favor and thus receiving the holy grace that might preserve our lives. You were always less concerned for what they thought and used this tendency to revel in order to draw me closer, preaching horrors of the family to my innocent, trusting ears. And I believed you. Good and evil became defined in my mind, as they had been to you.

Now, you turn way from me when we seldom meet. I don't let my covetous gaze lean towards you, no matter how hard the pull. There's a pretty girl on your arm, a new one every day. So clingy, so needy, and I wonder how you could love them as much as you said you loved me. Those proclamations of eternal devotion murmured directly to my ears meant a world of nothings to me. You turned away from me so abruptly, it left whiplash on your heart, a permanent, perfectly matching scar on both of us. Your breath reaches my cheek across the room and it pushes memories into sight of the sweet smell of alcohol on your lips as a wineglass tipped onto my lap, dismissed with giggles and kisses ending in a shared bed and a pile of clothes on the floor.

At school, we were connected in the mind of the student body. The ever popular one-word-couple. Siriusandbella. We were regarded with the tight lipped smiles reeking of both pity and disgust. But the perverse desire for scandal kept them watching and unspeaking. At that time, the school had already been diversified, and the common inbred couples were not the norm any longer, so we were seen by half the school as a disgusting, incestuous, and occasionally pedophiliac couple, and by the other half as an object of wonder and intrigue. Surely, it must have been odd, the two Black cousins, one in his seventh year, young and spry, the other in her fourth, the darkest of her sisters, walking hand in hand, oblivious to the world. James, Remus, Peter- they didn't like me, I knew. Thought I was corrupting your mind, but you, YOU, darling cousin, were the one impuring my own thoughts, both in the views you instilled to me, and the undying memories of the things we did behind closed doors…

I sometimes wonder whether it was me, or the other girls that turned you away. Did I become too dominating? Did I oppress your life until you smothered? Because I meant to. But you loved _every second_ of it. Your goddamned dignity wouldn't let you be anything but the controlling bastard you wanted to become. Ha, you could never do it. Even now, when you string along your little line of whores, so merry at your accompaniment, you are not in control. Of them, your life, of ANYTHING! You gave up control so, so long ago when you first met my lips at your will. After that, one had only to look to your eyes and KNOW that you ache with desire of freedom. I see them in my dreams, reaching out for me to sever the chain you think I created. But Sirius, darling, it's YOU that created it, no matter how you lay blame. YOU hold the lock, but seem to have lost the key somewhere along the way.

I remember the day. I remember the hour, the minute, that I realized you'd become distracted from my gaze. You glanced not in my direction for the entire day. I tried desperately to catch your eyes across the courtyard as we ate lunch, but you were with your mates and a look on your face that I hadn't seen for so long, I'd forgotten it. Carefree. Happy. Blithe. And it angered me, because you never looked at ME that way! Your typical expression was one of seriousness and of hard passion and lust. I didn't know that other emotions could exist inside you; that surely such a warm pleasure would shrivel and die in an environment alien to such positive emotions that you never seemed to show. Not to me. I assumed that _they_ were better than me. That _they _were the favored ones now. But it was the first time I walked in on you with a girl between your legs, that I realized that I wasn't right. They weren't better than me- not in the slightest. They were better _to you_. And that set us apart.

I imagine you lounging in your great manor, walking on your marble floors, through your bright-lit rooms, next to your sparkling swimming pool. I'm not jealous of that. I'm jealous of the nights when I know you enter your own darkened chamber and cry yourself to sleep against velvet pillows. _That's _when I want to be near you most. That's when I want to hear your sobs and comfort you. Or will I be tempted to sit dormant and watch your eyes redden and swell? Tempted to let your tears drain your body of spirit like mine have done since then.

After I knew that you were gone for sure, I turned to find something else to hold to, to steady myself, anchor myself, as I dizzied from your leaving. I found that I could not reach to other people – they repelled me and I did the same right back. They were flimsy and unstable compared to your strong security. I could not blame them – they were only speaking the truth. I could not blame you, even if you deserved it. I couldn't bring myself to. I could blame only myself, and I found myself believing that it was only my own fault of any wrongs that had affected my life. I found myself transferring all of _your_ faults to my own conscience. I found myself thinking that any mistakes of yours were my own. I wanted to rid the world of your imperfections – the only way to do so was to rid the world of myself. I finally found ground in the sharpness of steel. The piercing of flesh translated not to my mind, but to my vision of you. I found solace in the blood running down my body, and floated through it like a lazy river. It never occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong. And I wasn't. I told you once, I think. I showed you the scars, fresh and old, hopefully looking up into your eyes that you would see your own suffering reflected. That you would realize that it was killing _you_. It wasn't, of course, and you knew this, looking upon me with disgust and a hint of concern. You pulled my sleeves back down and smoothed my hair. Then after a last glance into my eyes you turned away, leaving me to find my way back to my dormitory and repeat the ritual, never losing hope that you'd see the light.

Sometimes I think that if I could just feel your presence near me once again, these emotions might dissolve into something less harsh. But you are far, far away, and I can't feel you anymore. My love for you is all but forbidden now that you don't return the feelings. How cruel is the way of the world. My affections must be hidden to prevent disgrace, and holed up inside of me. Sometimes, I tilt my head to the sky and whisper secrets only angels should hear, but they're captured by the devil before they reach the heavens…I can't blame you. Only them. Because somehow, I know it's my own fault. And it's my blood that is spilt for it. As it should be.

I think back to the time when I first felt the magnetic sexual attraction forming between us. I was 14, a virgin, and thrived on the naiveté of my hard-to-get attitude. You were 17, had already bedded half the school, and drew me in with your blunt, straightforwardness. The petty affection that we'd shared before was abandoned for something more intimate. You're gentleness comforted me as I was eased into the mysteriously enthralling world of sex and pleasure. I preferred to think of it as "making love". That sounded so gentle, so…_right_. You casually called it "fucking". Fuck. It sounds so dirty, so rough. I always hated it. To you, it was always a good fuck, a quick fuck, even a mind-blowing exhilarating fuck. To me, it was something that was soothing, something to bring about that intense sense of need, of desire, and a symbol of the love between us. To you, it was just me. Just being able to take me, to control me, at least for a while. To touch me, to hold me, to love me, in your own fashion…to _fuck_ me- that was what it was to you. You did love me, I think. You knew that sex was the international currency, and you instilled the knowledge into me to go into the world knowing _something_. But you forgot, love, that _you_ are part of the world as well. And you made the biggest mistake of your life in that respect, because once you passed that knowledge on, you took power, the one thing you craved, and you turned it over to me.

Since then, ha, I've slept with more men than I could count on the fingers of everyone I know, and more women than most men have – social elevation calls for dire measures. Still, you, dear, are the only lover that I can ever point out in my mind as having, for a time, truly felt for. But that is so far gone that it is a mere lingering sensation, yet the most vivid one in my mind. And I call upon it now with a longing smile. The blade moves smoothly across my skin, never leaving it, like the steel bow in a bloody violin sonata. I'd forgotten the rush. So long it's been since I practiced what I used to preach to your deaf ears. The pain will blind you, the blood drown you, the blade knock you forth and slit your throat, but it overpowers all other things that are meant to stay locked deep in your soul. The pain is a dull ache in the back of my mind, that could be mistaken for a memory. Elegant patterns of blood trace my arms, like the sacred tattoos of ancient initiations. I smile down at them, as the blood streaks rivers that drip off my fingertips and onto the floor, pooling around my bare feet. I sink to my knees, the unnoticed weakness finally apparent, as life drains through my wrists. But it is with pride and a faint smile that I rest my head in the scarlet puddle and make myself believe that I'm once again falling asleep in your arms.


End file.
